THE DO’S & DON’TS

OF RAMADAN

WHAT IS A FAST?

• Abstaining from three things:

1. Eating Refers to ingesting anything voluntarily into the

GI-track, which includes your mouth, nose, esophagus, stomach, intestines, and rectum.

2. Drinking Includes smoking.

3. Marital relationships

MORE ON EATING / DRINKING etc.

• If you eat / drink / sniff / inject a substance in any way, four conditions to be met for your fast to break:

1. The substance is “visible”, i.e. visible to naked eye.

2. Intake is “controllable”, i.e. not being fed forcefully.

3. Substance enters the GI-track. Includes mouth, nose, esophagus, stomach, intestines, and rectum. Excludes eyes and ears.

4. You remember that you are fasting.

FASTING BECOMES OBLIGATORY WHEN…

1. It is the month of Ramadan (i.e. the moon has been sighted)

2. A person is a Muslim

3. That Muslim is sane

4. That Muslim is mature, i.e. an adult in the Islamic sense

PEOPLE EXEMPT FROM FASTING

• If a person is sick

• Pregnant / nursing woman

• A person who is travelling

Sickness

• The sickness has to be confirmed by aa) pious, b) Muslim, c) doctor

• If such a pious, Muslim, doctor feels that one’s medical condition will be aggravated/pro-longed by fast, then one can be exempt from fasting.Note: It is not necessary for fasting to threaten a person’s life in order for a person to be exempt from fasting.

• 2 types of sickness:1. Temporary sickness, i.e. one is expected to recover from this sickness in

the foreseeable future (e.g. malaria)- Make up one fast for each missed fast

2. Permanent sickness, i.e. one is not expected to ever recover from this sickness (e.g. diabetes)

- Pay the fidya (fidya = money for Sadqa-e-Fitr to be given to a needy person)

Pregnant / Nursing woman

• If she fears that fasting would be harmful to her or her child

Travelling

• In Shariah, travelling is defined as a journey from outside your city’s boundaries.

• Journey has to be at least than 48 miles from your city’s boundaries.

• Traveler has a choice: he/she can choose to fast or not.

• If the person chooses not to fast, for every missed fast, one make-up fast will have to be kept outside of Ramadan.

CANNOT FAST WHEN…

• If one is menstruating

• If one is having post-natal bleeding

INTENTIONS FOR FASTING

• One has to make niyyat for the fast in Ramadan.

• The intention to fast does not need to be said out aloud. It can be an intention inside the heart.

• You should have the intention that I am keeping a Farz fast, in the month of Ramadan, for the sake of ALLAH (s.w.t.).

THINGS THAT INVALIDATE THE FAST

• Things invalidating a fast can be divided into 2 categories:

1. Those that require a Kaffarah

2. Those that require a Qada

INVALIDATION REQUIRING KAFFARAH

• Kaffarah becomes mandatory only when:One eats, drinks or has intercourse intentionally during fast (not if you are so sick that you have to eat)

• Kaffarah:A Kaffarah is defined as fasting for 60 consecutive days outside of Ramadan.

NOTE: If a person is physically capable of fasting for 60 consecutive days, then that person MUST fast as a Kaffarah.

• If a person is not physically able to fast for 60 consecutive days, then that person can pay a Fidya. The fidya for an intentionally broken fast in Ramadan is to either feed one poor 2 meals a day for 60 days. Or one can feed 60 poor 2 meals in one day.Note: If a person breaks multiple fasts in one Ramadan, still the Kaffarah is the same as for one fast deliberately broken.

INVALIDATIONS REQUIRING QADA

• Qada: If a person has to make a Qada for a fast, that person has to keep 1 fast for each fast requiring Qada.

• Qada will be required for the following:

– If a person decides not to fast during a Ramadan day from the very beginning of the fast

– Eating / drinking something that is not usually condsidred as food or medicine (inedible items)

– While rinsing the mouth, water went down the throat

– Breaks fast due to extreme sickness or due to such extreme hunger / thirst that death is feared from hunger / thirst.

– Ingest something that was already in mouth when fast started: if it is equal to or greater than the size of a chickpea, the fast will require a Qada.

INVALIDATIONS REQUIRING QADA (Contd…)

– Swallowing of water while gargling during wudu inside a fast.

– Deliberate vomiting = one mouthful or more.

– Eat drink mistakenly

NOTE: The time for sehri ends as soon as the time for Fajr starts. It is a common misunderstanding that one can eat or drink as long as the Azaans are continuing. We should try to know the exact time each day when sehri ends and should try to keep fast according to our watches instead of waiting for the Azaan or the siren.

THINGS THAT DON’T BREAK THE FAST

• Eating or drinking unintentionally (but stops as soon as she remembers that she is fasting)

• Vomiting unintentionally (even if it is more than 1 mouthful, even if unintentionally swallowed back)

• Bathing, ghusal or any use of water that doesn’t enter GI-track

• Giving blood (for donation or for testing)

• Use of perfumes, itar, oil or creams

• Unintentional sniffing of Second-hand smoke

• Injection not entering the GI-track (even if it is energy-giving)

• Use of eye-liner, medicinal eye or ear drops

BRUSHING TEETH DURING FAST

• Brushing teeth is Makrooh during fast. If one uses toothpaste and swallows it, the fast will require a Qada (since the item swallowed is not an edible)

• Rationale: Tooth paste poses risk to your fast.

When we use toothpaste, it mixes with our saliva and we swallow our saliva all the time, so the toothpaste is ingested and the fast in invalidated.

MAKROOHAAT (UNDESIRABLES) OF FASTING

• Chewing gum: If it has flavor, it will break the fast. Makrooh to put a thing in your mouth than can break your fast.

• To gather one’s saliva inside one’s mouth and then swallow it as a means of quenching thirst repeatedly is Makrooh.

• To backbite, lie, quarrel or do anything that is undesirable in Islam, in general. Such things will nullify the purpose of one’s fast.

MUSTAHABBAAT (DESIRABLES) OF FASTING

• Break the fast on time.

• Breaking the fast with dates or water is Sunnah.

• Delay Sehri towards the last hour of night.• If someone tries to fight with you, to say

انا صائم• Make dua at times of Suhoor and Iftaar

• Use of miswaak is permissible during Roza.

WHEN NOT TO KEEP A QADA FAST

• The days of Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha, and three days after each Eid.

• Cannot make-up Qada fasts for previous Ramadans during the month of Ramadan.

NOTE:A Qada fast is waajib (necessary to keep)

Delaying a Qada fast without any reason is a sin.

If one has Qada fasts due which fell in 2 different Ramadans, then, when making niyyat for the Qada she will have to specify which year’s Qada she is making.

MENSTRUATION AND THE FAST

• Menstruation starting during fast, breaks fast. Qada is wajib, even if 5 mins before iftaar.

• Menstruation starts or ends during fast, should act like a fasting person

• Even if menstruation stops 1 min before sehri with no time for ghusal, keep the fast

TARAWEEH SALAT

• Is Sunnah Mu’akkida (emphasized Sunnah for both men & women)

Sunnat-e-Mu’akkada: A Sunnat that was left by the Prophet (s.a.w.) only due to the following three reasons:

1. Travel (Shari’ travel), 2. Marz (sickness), 3. Jihad

• To leave a Sunnat-e-Mu’akkida without any reason is a sinful act.

• Afzal to offer Taraweeh in Jamaat & complete whole Quran in Taraweeh.

• Since it is Sunnah Mu’akkada, there is no Qada or make-up for this.

• Taraweeh can only be offered after Isha salatA person enters the masjid and the Taraweeh salat has started.

She should pray Isha before joining Taraweeh prayer.

Once the Taraweeh has been completed, she can either pray Witr in congregation and then offer the Taraweeh that she missed.

OR she can pray her Taraweeh and offer Witr later on her own.

• Taraweeh is 20 rakat salat

TARAWEEH SALAAT (Contd…)

• “Sayyidah Ayesha (r.t.a.) relates that Rasulullah (s.a.w.) did not increase, in Ramadan or out of it, on eleven rakaats; he used to perform four rakaats, do not ask of its beauty and its length, and then he used to perform four rakaats, do not ask of their beauty and length. Then he used to perform three rakaats.

Sayyidah Ayesha (r.t.a.) enquired “Do you sleep before you have performed the Witr?”

Rasulullah (s.a.w.) replied: “O Ayesha, my eyes sleep but my heart does not sleep.” “

Bukhari

• “It is obligatory upon you to follow my Sunnat and the Sunnat of the Khulafa Rashideen after me, hold onto it with your molars (steadfastly).

Mishkaat

• Taraweeh is the extreme plural of the singular “tarweeha”

• “Tarweeha” is a set of two and two (a set of four)

• Arabic has singular dual plural (more than two)

(sa’im) (sa’imaan) (sa’imoon)

• If Taraweeh was 8 rakaats, then the dual form should be used (tarweehataan) rather than the extreme plural form (taraweeh)

• The word “Taraweeh” itself points to more than 8 rakaats, at the very least

ITIKAF

• Itikaf is a “Farz-e-Kifaya”, i.e. it is farz upon each community but not on each individual. This means that for each masjid in a locality, at least one male person has to perform the Itikaf in the masjid.

• It is also a Sunnah Ghair-e-Mu’akkida (if a person leaves it, there won’t be any sin on him / her)

• Women can do Itikaf in their house. Should designate a place inside their house as a place of Itikaf.

• Cannot sit in Itikaf during menstruation.

• If menstruation starts during Itikaf

• Once the woman is purified from her haid or nifaas, she will have to make Qada of her itikaf. The Qada will only be for the day on which she was overcome by haid or nifaas. If she makes Qada of that Itikaf after Ramadan, she will have to fast on that ay as well. but if she makes Qada of that Itikaf in Ramadan, then the fast of Ramadan will suffice for her Qada Itikaf.

• Sunnah Itikaf is performed by spending the last 10 days of Ramadan inside the boundaries of a masjid (for men) or a place of Itikaf inside the house (for women).

WITR IN CONGREGATION

• Witr is prayed in congregation only in the month of Ramadan.

• During Witr, when the Imam says the takbirfor Dua-e-Qunoot in the third rakat, the muqtadi should recite her own Dua-e-Qunootin her heart behind the Imam.

NOTE: It is permissible to pray Nafl salat after offering Witr.

SADAQA-E-FITR

• Due on each person who is alive on the day of Eid-ul-Fitr.

• Don’t combine Eidi with Sadaqa-e-Fitr

LAYLATUL QADR

• On this night, Hazrat Jibraeel (a.h.s.) descends for us non-Prophetic beings

• More chances of it falling in the last 10 nights

• Even more chances of it falling in the odd nights in last 10 nights

• Worship should be individual

“ If someone misses a single fast of Ramadan and thereafter fasts the entire year as compensation, he will not receive the same reward he would’ve received for that one fast of Ramadan ”

Hadith

May ALLAH (swt)grant you a

maqbool Ramadan